Anonymous Hackers Extract Fourteen Gigabytes of Data from Malek Ashtar University Servers

Technical examination of the data extracted from the servers of this state university indicates that hackers infiltrated through a vulnerability known as 'log4j'. — Voice of America has obtained documents indicating the infiltration of a group known as anonymous hackers into the servers of Malek Ashtar University, affiliated with the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Support of the Islamic Republic. The technical review of the extracted data shows that hackers successfully penetrated an outdated version of 'Adobe Connect', used for video communications, and extracted over fourteen gigabytes of data from the university's servers. The hacked information includes a large collection of audio, video, and text files, generally related to the university's classes and educational content. The subjects and educational materials provided at various educational levels, as well as the teaching methods and focus of the university's professors, provide a clearer perspective on the policies of Malek Ashtar University, which often align with the ideological goals of the Islamic Republic. Files related to technical and field research, as well as files associated with the university's classes, reflect the university's investment in technical and technological areas, such as security, hacking and infiltration, artificial intelligence, digital governance, digital pathology, intelligence gathering from other countries, forecasting events, and the technological needs emphasized by the officials of the Islamic Republic. Malek Ashtar University was established before February 1979 by American specialists as a research center related to Iran's defense industries in Shahinshahr, Isfahan. In 1984, by a resolution of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, the center was renamed the University of Defense Sciences and Industries, and the admission of scholarship students at the undergraduate level began. In 2003, the name of the University of Defense Sciences and Industries was changed to Malek Ashtar University of Technology, and the master's degree program was added. In recent years, the scope of activities of this university, under various educational complexes, has expanded to other cities in Iran, and now Malek Ashtar University of Technology, as one of Iran's state industrial universities, hosts students generally from institutions and organizations affiliated with the Islamic Republic. The 'log4j' vulnerability is one of the dangerous vulnerabilities known by the identifier 'CVE-2021-44228'. This vulnerability allows hackers to access vulnerable targets through remote code execution (RCE). The risk level of this vulnerability is rated at 10, and all devices using versions 2.0 to 2.14.1 of the open-source 'Java logging' library are vulnerable. To mitigate this vulnerability, the 'log4j' library must be updated to 'log4j-2.15.0' or higher.